In the last two weeks, United States President Barack Obama has been in the news a little more than usual. The withdrawal from the war in Iraq has been one reason. Media practitioners have also duly noted Obama’s statement that Muslims have equal rights in the USA as any other American. There has been a lot of discussion on these two news items and it has prompted me to revisit some of my earlier work.

As the 1984 US general election approached, African American Jesse Jackson came forward and offered himself to be the presidential nominee for the US Democratic Party. He did not get it and tried again in 1988 but failed once more. When the Republican George Herbert Walker Bush was elected US president, my column in the now defunct Jamaica Record was called “Blessing in disguise”.

The point that I made was that since the Democrat Michael Dukakis had lost the presidential election, it would be easier for Jesse Jackson to make a bid for the Democratic nomination in 1992. Had Dukakis won, he would have been very difficult to dislodge for the following election unless he did not seek re-election. But Bill Clinton was chosen as the Democratic nominee in 1992. He was elected president that year and again in 1996.

The idea of a black president of the USA rested on my mind from November 1988 to January 1989. I spent the 1989 New Year holiday in Lucea, Hanover, and it was there that I had the idea to write a poem. I wrote it the very next morning, January 2, 1989, in Lucea. I submitted it to the literary arts editor at the Jamaica Record, the late Charles Hyatt, and it was published on Thursday, January 19, 1989. It went thus, apart from minor changes:

No more prejudice or self-hate

No more negative views of fate

The change will come in USA

On Black-skin President Day

Many years Jews knew oppression

Yahweh brought a different session

Yahweh answers all we pray

On Black-skin President Day

Africa mauled by past disaster

Will develop anew that day much faster

The future looks bright come what may

On Black-skin President Day

In the Diaspora sons of slaves

In the western lands our braves

Will gain Black pride, a bright sunray

On Black-skin President Day

No more hardships and oppression

A day of change a great confession

A glorious future in store doth lay

On Black-skin President Day

Marcus Garvey Jamaican-born

Told us do not thyself scorn

A new milestone along the way

On Black-skin President Day.

I made two word changes because they were misunderstood in January 1989. In a subsequent article on February 14, 1989 in the Jamaica Record, I wrote that many people see it as all right for other races of people to have their cultural events in drama, song and poetry. But the moment Africans, whether at home or in the diaspora, decide to come together to have cultural events, the word “racist” is attached to it.

But today I am looking at the whole matter of prophecy. Can I claim to be prophetic because of the above poem? In the first place, there is only one little aspect of the prophecy that has actually come true, in that a man with obvious African features is in fact the president of the USA. The other aspects of the poem have not yet come true, although Obama has announced the withdrawal of troops in Iraq and has made a statement about religious equality.

I will be the first to agree that a statement in and of itself is not the implementation of an idea. I will also be the first to tell you that prophecy means to proclaim the word of God and that it is not primarily concerned with telling the future. For example, it is not the total sum of words by any prophet in the Bible that has to do with foretelling the future. Indeed, one would find that it is the minority of words by any prophet that had to do with the future.

It is not for me to say whether I was prophetic in the sense of being called to proclaim. I have no intention of claiming knowledge of all that is going to happen in the future. Nor do I claim to know everything, even if I am in fact a prophet because such persons were not necessarily learned men.

And by the way, one thing that I do not know is why former US Ambassador Sue Cobb is being awarded with the Order of Jamaica. I have nothing against her. Indeed, I recall that in every photograph I saw of her she was smiling. But I still want to know why she has been so honoured. You might recall that I criticised the government last year for giving Usain Bolt what I considered to be too many honours. But at least I knew why he was being given the honours, even if too many and too soon.

On this occasion I simply do not know why Sue Cobb is being so honoured. And I write these words not only because I am concerned at what our national honours might be turned into, but also to demonstrate that I do not know everything, whether or not I have the gift of prophecy.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com